The company said the Arkansas prison system failed to return a supply of vercuronium bromide.

An Arkansas judge on Friday issued a temporary restraining order barring the state from administering one of three drugs it planned to use in a series of lethal injections scheduled to begin early next week.

Judge Wendell Griffen of the Sixth Judicial Circuit in Little Rock issued the order after a petition from McKesson Medical-Surgical Inc. The company said the Arkansas prison system failed to return a supply of vercuronium bromide when it learned the state intended to use it for executions, in violation of an understanding at the time of the sale.

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